CHAD DAWSON TKO2 BERNARD HOPKINS

FRIDAY UPDATE: The term “firestorm of controversy” comes to mind. After the big-fight fiasco involving Chad Dawson and Bernard Hopkins in Los Angeles on Saturday night the boxing world seems to be talking about little else.
 
One thing is becoming clear. The original verdict of a second-round TKO win for Dawson is not going stand for much longer. It seems inevitable that the California commission will shortly declare the bout to have been a “no decision”.
 
The World Boxing Council has already weighed in, ruling on Thursday that the bout is, in its view, a technical draw, which allows Hopkins to keep his light-heavy belt.
 
Initially, I could not understand all the outrage when Hopkins essentially resigned himself from the fight and referee Pat Russell ruled that Dawson was the winner.
 
Yes, Dawson had shouldered Hopkins off him — not too violently in my opinion — and the 46-year-old light-heavyweight champion had fallen awkwardly.
 
However, in the referee’s opinion, on the night, there had been no foul. Therefore, if Hopkins says he is too badly injured to continue, and in the referee’s view he hadn’t been fouled, then the result would surely be a TKO win for Dawson?
 
What is happening, though, is that many people in boxing, including experienced and respected officials, are saying that despite what the referee ruled, there clearly wasan accidental foul.
 
Greg Sirb, the Pennsylvania boxing commissioner, put it to me this way in an email:
 
“Hopkins created the situation by causing the first accidental foul (leaning on Dawson) — Dawson continued the Accidental foul by lifting him off — What could Dawson do ? — wait for the ref to separate them or circle out instead of lifting up — or many other legal tactics — Hopkins started the foul Dawson continued the foul = NO CONTEST — this is a very simple call”
 
That was how Sirb saw it. Of course, the HBO commentary strongly endorsed the “no decision” line of thinking, with what seemed dark hints of a cover-up, or worse.
 
There is always going to be controversy over this sort of ending, but it’s not as if something like it has never happened before.
 
Something similar occurred in 1950 when Sandy Saddler won by TKO after seven rounds against bitter rival Willie Pep in a clash of featherweight greats.
 
Pep, who was in front on the scorecards, asserted that Saddler, who was admittedly a vicious infighter, had been guilty of roughhousing, wrenching Pep’s arm so violently in a clinch that the shoulder popped out.
 
The fighters had been wrestling and grappling in the seventh when Pep’s shoulder was hurt. Boxing historian Nat Fleischer felt that Saddler had Pep’s left arm pinned “and bent it backward” but referee Ruby Goldstein ruled that Pep had been accidentally injured. Maybe the referee felt that the boxers were equally guilty of borderline illegal tactics and that Pep was the one unlucky enough to come off worst.
 
More recently, Jeff Franklin was declared winner by TKO over Gabriel Ruelas in unsatisfactory circumstances in Las Vegas in 1990. Ruelas was dominating the fight but he suffered a broken right elbow and the bout was stopped in the seventh round. Ruelas’s trainer, Joe Goossen, felt that referee Richard Steele should have disqualified Franklin for yanking on Ruelas’s arm. “Franklin snapped Gabe’s arm,” Goossen told the Las Vegas Sun. “It was so intentional it was unbelievable.”
 
Referee Steele ruled, though, that Ruelas had been injured accidentally, and Franklin got the win by TKO.
 
This is really simple. If the referee rules that a fighter has been accidentally injured, and the fighter tells the referee he cannot continue, then the fighter loses by TKO — and veteran referee Pat Russell ruled that Hopkins had been accidentally injured.
 
Veteran fight people are supporting the referee. I cannot name names because people within the trade have to work with HBO and Hopkins’s Golden Boy Promotions, but a view I have heard a lot — including from ex-fighters.
 
Here is an email I received from an ex-boxer in the great state of Texas:
 
“Now, granted this was a little more on the gray side, but … in the end.. if you cant continue you lose… Hopkins initiated the situation much like Ortiz initiated the fouls… I didn’t see Dawson flagrantly throw Hopkins… he used his shoulder and pushed him off.” 
 
The ending was unfortunate for those who paid to watch the bout on site in the Staples Center or ordered the PPV, it was very unfortunate for boxing, and it was unfortunate for Dawson because it looked to me as if he was bullying Hopkins and well on his way to victory. Hopkins had been doing his punch-and-rush-in tactics (and was cautioned in the first round for coming in a bit too enthusiastically with his head). In round two, Hopkins did it again, and Dawson seemed almost gently to shoulder Hopkins off him, but the ageing champion lost his balance and went sprawling on his back, immediately grimacing and indicating his left shoulder was compromised.
 
I thought I heard referee Russell telling Hopkins, or the champion’s corner, that the fight would be a TKO if Hopkins couldn’t continue.
 
There is more to it, though. HBO analyst Max Kellerman touched on it with his “boy who cried wolf” reference. Hopkins has a history of histrionics. Yes, Hopkins carried on fighting with a shoulder injury after Antwun Echols threw him to the canvas in their rematch in Las Vegas, and full marks to him for that. However, Hopkins’s dramatics in his fight with Joe Calzaghe and in the rematch with Roy Jones Jr. did not exactly win him acclaim. Hopkins collapsed theatrically from what looked a nothing-much low blow against Calzaghe and from what looked like a tap on the back of the head against Jones. Perhaps referee Russell thought Hopkins was using what Kellerman called “veteran” tactics. It was all a bit of a mess.
 
This was the second farcical finish to a fight involving Hopkins. I was ringside in Las Vegas when his bout with Robert Allen ended on a no contest ruling when Hopkins asserted he had hurt his ankle when he went through the ropes. Had Hopkins fallen out of the ring after, say, missing with a punch, he would have lost by TKO. However, referee Mills Lane, breaking up one of many clinches, pushed Hopkins a little too vigorously and it was this that caused Hopkins’s tumble out of the ring. In a case such as this, a “no contest” was the only sane ruling. It wasn’t the same thing at all as what happened last night in Los Angeles.
 
As for the commission not electing to make Pat Russell available for an interview, my suspicion is that they wished to sit down with the referee and go over everything with him in a calm way before any statements were made to the media. This is the British Boxing Board’s policy and it isn’t so terribly unusual. HBO’s Max Kellerman and Jim Lampley would take the view that they would just be giving the referee the chance to explain his ruling, but the commission might have sensed that one of their officials was about to get a public grilling in an emotion-charged atmosphere. The commission might have felt: “The crowd’s booing and chanting bullshit, feelings are running high, let’s let this thing cool down a bit.” I can’t blame them for taking this position.
 
I do, though, expect a “no decision” to be forthcoming — you can take it to the bank.